Team Malaysia Gala Awards notes

MALAYSIA WINS AT A1GP 2007/08 GALA AWARDS

A1GP World Cup of Motorsport celebrated the end of its 2007/08 season with a glittering Gala Awards dinner at the Hilton Park Lane in London on Monday 5 May. Teams, drivers, sponsors and officials gathered to pay tribute to the memorable achievements of the season, including Switzerland clinching the championship, Ireland being the most improved team, Canada's Robert Wickens claiming the Rookie prize and Malaysia being the most popular team in the series as voted for by the legions of fans who visit A1GP.com

Tony Teixeira, Chairman of A1GP, presented A1 Team Switzerland with the World Cup trophy and congratulated all 22 nations on an incredible third season of competition.

'I want to say well done to A1 Team Switzerland. Max Welti and his team have done a great job and I know the fight has been long and hard with the likes of New Zealand, Great Britain and France never letting up and keeping the most amazing amount of pressure on them. But I also want to congratulate all the other teams who have made the year so memorable and contributed to the title fight going down the wire at Brands Hatch.'

A1GP's own commentator Ben Edwards and pit lane reporter Lee McKenzie hosted the evening

Much to the delight of the team members of A1 Team Malaysia, Aaron Lim and Fairuz Fauzy accepted the award for "Best Team as voted for by A1GP Fanzone members".

The team drivers said of the award, "It is a great honour for us to accept this award on behalf of Malaysia's national team. It has been a hard year for us on the track; one from which we intend to recover. This award means a lot to all of us, as it is a vote of confidence by the fans of the team. Our loyal fans in Malaysia and Malaysians word-wide have voted for us, just us. We are looking forward to next season and to racing for our nation once again."

Jack Cunningham, Chief Executive of A1 Team Malaysia said at the end of the evening, "We see this as meaning that, to our fans, we are indeed the most popular A1GP team of all this season and that we have the most active fans of any of our competitors. This is a wonderful tribute to all our technical and commercial team members and to the tireless work they put in, day after day and week by week. We know that A1 Team MAL have literally tens of thousands of fans around the world, especially in Malaysia, and this award, as 'given' by them to us, is a reflection of their passion for what we do.

I would like to thank them for following us, for their commitment to us, for being part of our team and for voting for us. A1GP is alive and well in Malaysia."

-credit: malaysia